Pop Culture Blog

I’ve whiled away a few nights watching Spike Jonze music videos. Jonze, whose new feature Her opens Friday, is among the genuine masters and pioneers of the medium, a filmmaker who saw the free-associative potential of matching a pop song to the perfect mini-narrative or string of images.

“Writing videos is so fun because it can be anything,” Jonze told me by phone. “It can be any image you want for three minutes that goes with the feeling of the song. That’s all that matters.”

You can see some of his best on the Palm Pictures Director’s Series Jonze DVD (above). Meanwhile, here he is talking about three of my favorites.

“I had heard Walken was a great dancer, and I watched Pennies from Heaven, where he has a dance scene,” Jonze says. “I just thought it would be so fun to get to shoot him dancing. I had never met him before, but I was a huge fan. I talked to Norman (Cook, aka Fatboy Slim), and said ‘I don’t have a lot to tell you, just one thing: Christopher Walken dancing in a hotel.’ He said, ‘Sounds good to me.’ I explained it to Christopher. He said, ‘Well, I’m 57 years old, and I don’t know when I’ll get to this sort of thing again. So, sure.’

MC 900 Ft. Jesus, “If I Only Had a Brain” – Dallas’ own Mark Griffin took on the tall savior name back in the ’80s. Jonze was a fan, and ended up directing this video about a guy who ships himself, in a large box, to get the brain he clearly needs.

“My friend Lou and I were on a trip to Dallas for a skate tour,” Jonze recalls. “We were in the hotel room and we realized: MC 900 Ft. Jesus lives in Dallas. Let’s find him! We started looking up Mark Griffins in the phone book and we found a bunch of them and just started calling them. My friend would say, ‘Excuse me, sir, how tall are you?’ After three or four we got one who just started laughing, and we knew we had found him. This was a few years before we did the video, but we talked on the phone for 20 minutes. It was awesome.”

Dinosaur Jr., “Feel the Pain” – Just a few holes of golf, through the streets and over the rooftops of New York, with a little assault on the side.

“There was a period where we were going to this three-hole public golf course, where the holes are just a hundred yards apart,” Jonze says. “It was right near the Beastie Boys’ studio in Atwater Village in Los Angeles. Mike D got really into golf for about six months, so I would just go with him. That was part of it.” Fore!

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News, reviews, nuggets and tidbits from the world of pop culture, including movies, music, TV, local and national celebrities.